Ray Sharma is the founding partner and CEO of Extreme Venture Partners, the founder of XMG Studio and a super angel investor.

Education and career

Sharma was born in

Anandpur Sahib Anandpur Sahib, sometimes referred to simply as Anandpur (lit. "city of bliss"), is a city in Rupnagar district (Ropar), on the edge of Shivalik Hills, in the Indian state of Punjab. Located near the Sutlej River, the city is one of the most ...

Punjab, India Punjab (; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in northern India. Forming part of the larger Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, the state is bordered by the States and union territories of India, Indian states of Himachal ...

. He obtained his degree in Business Administration from the

Ivey School of Business Ivey Business School is a constituent unit of the University of Western Ontario, located in London, Ontario, Canada. Ivey offers full-time undergraduate (HBA), MBA, MSc, MFE and PhD programs and also maintains two teaching facilities in Toronto ...

The University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thames Ri ...

. Sharma started his career in the global investment banking industry where he worked as a stock market analyst, focusing on wireless-related technology companies at

Credit Suisse First Boston Credit Suisse First Boston (also known as CSFB and CS First Boston) is the investment banking affiliate of Credit Suisse headquartered in New York. The company was created by the merger of First Boston Corporation and Credit Suisse Group in 198 ...

in San Francisco before moving to BMO Nesbitt Burns and GMP Securities in Toronto. In 2007, he co-founded Extreme Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most pop ...

. He later co-founded Extreme Accelerator which offered funding, mentorship, and resources for startups relocating to Canada. In 2009, he founded XMG Studio, a mobile games studio, after being inspired by his children on the convenience of mobile games versus traditional consoles. His private investments outside those at Extreme Venture Partners include

Athabasca Oil Athabasca (also Athabaska) is an anglicized version of the Cree name for Lake Athabasca in Canada, āthap-āsk-ā-w (pronounced ), meaning "grass or reeds here and there". Most places named Athabasca are found in Alberta, Canada. Athabasca may a ...

, Bridgewater, and Cancervax - all of which underwent an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

. In addition, Sharma has spoken at mobile industry events including Interactive Ontario's iP3 Forum, the 2013

Milken Institute The Milken Institute is an independent economic think tank based in Santa Monica, California with offices in Washington, DC, New York, Miami, London, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore. It publishes research and hosts conferences that apply market-based p ...

Global Conference, the 2012 Application Developers Conference hosted by Scotia Capital, and the 2010 CTIA Mobile Web and Apps World Forum. In February 2013, Sharma participated in a discussion panel with

Tony Clement Tony Peter Clement (born January 27, 1961) is a Canadian former federal politician and former Member of Parliament for Parry Sound—Muskoka in Ontario. Before entering federal politics, Clement served as an Ontario cabinet minister, including ...

and other entrepreneurs and developers over the

open data Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements ...

made available by the Canadian government. Through XMG Studio, he founded The Great Canadian Appathon in 2011, an app-building competition for Canadian university students. Sharma is also a guest author for Pocket Gamer and The Globe and Mail. He has also served on the Ontario Judicial Council, the Government of Canada's Advisory Panel on Open Government and the Royal Ontario Museum's Board of Trustees. He is also the creator of the Canadian Open Data Experience (CODE), which is Canada's largest open data hackathon. In 2015, Sharma co-founded Hackergal - a not-for-profit organization that aims to introduce young girls to coding. In that same year, he also co-founded Hackworks, a Toronto-based company that specializes in executing

hackathons A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest, datathon or codefest; a portmanteau of hacking and marathon) is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 hours. Th ...

and open innovation events. In 2019, an Ontario Superior Court ruling found that

Chamath Palihapitiya Chamath Palihapitiya (born 3 September 1976) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian and American venture capitalist, engineer, SPAC sponsor, founder and CEO of Social Capital. Palihapitiya was an early senior executive at Facebook, working at the compan ...

and two former partners at Extreme Venture Partners conspired to hide an interest in dating app

Tinder Tinder is easily combustible material used to start a fire. Tinder is a finely divided, open material which will begin to glow under a shower of sparks. Air is gently wafted over the glowing tinder until it bursts into flame. The flaming tinder i ...

as part of a sale of shares in Xtreme Labs - resulting in the three paying $15.69 million to Extreme Venture Partner's current partners and co-founders.

References

External links

Extreme Venture Partners WebsiteHackworks WebsiteHackergal Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharma, Ray 1973 births Living people